Steven McDermott's research is situated within the wider framework of the internet being the greatest force for democratisation the world has ever seen (Pitrodi, 1993), and at the same time another means for disseminating propaganda, fear and intimidation (Rodan, 1997). He analyses the discourses and styles of discourse of the Singapore political blogosphere. He asks 'which blogs are the keyplayers?' and 'what discourses and styles of discourse appear in the Singapore political blogosphere?'
Steven McDermott has targeted blogs using social network analysis uncovering the key players of the Singapore political blogs with higher levels of 'closeness centrality' and 'betweenness centrality' (Nooy et al., 2005). An exploratory analysis of the position that the non-democratic nature of Singapore society shapes the development of online public spheres. It questions whether the internet engenders democracy or the dissemination of propaganda, fear, and intimidation.
This network visualization depicts the Singapore blogosphere in 2008. The red lines refer to links between the 1239 analyzed blogs.